Ten Things About Christopher Paolini

JEREMY OWEN

When discussing Christopher Paolini and his work with, well, anyone, you quickly discover that there is no such thing as a lukewarm opinion. People run hot and cold with equal fervor, and Jeremy Owen gets right to the heart of the matter with an essay that is at once both praiseful and pointedly blunt.

Go to a library, bookstore, or better yet, any gathering of people who consider themselves writers and say two words: Christopher Paolini. Try it. It gives amazing results with very little effort on your part. The polarizing effect is instantaneous; a group of mild-mannered bookish types will transform into two ravening gangs right before your eyes. The pro-Paolini element will square off against the anti-Paolini in seconds. Make sure you’re outside the danger zone before the insults and occasional breakable objects start flying around.

You’ve probably already heard some of the pro arguments, possibly even read some in the volume you’re holding, but those aren’t the arguments I want to single out. I want to look at the opposition. You’ve heard what they have to say before, only in reference to other authors. But with the addition of Paolini to the mix the contentions take on a new, frenzied tone. I don’t know if it’s Paolini’s youth or quick ascension to lofty status that makes people dislike him, but everybody seems to have at least one point against him. I’ve listed the strongest ones below.

Ten Reasons Why People Hate Christopher Paolini

1) Youth

Christopher Paolini is young. He’s older now than when he started Eragon, but he’s still young. Most people expect sixteen-year-old boys to be babbling, hormone-riddled morons who think a pronoun is a noun that’s lost its amateur status. For the most part these derogatory thoughts about adolescent males are right. A teenage boy being able to string a coherent list of words into a recognizable sentence is noteworthy, and Christopher Paolini did that ten thousand times . . . in a row! Brilliant! Most people, especially other writers, tend to see that as an over-achievement for someone his age. I don’t think this is Christopher’s fault, but that of the observer judging him. If you think Christopher Paolini is too young, then you must be too old. Wait a while. Christopher will age with time, and you might find it easier to deal with him when he’s thirty.

2) Completion

Christopher Paolini finished a novel. Here’s a revelation that stuck in the craw of many a writer. People love saying they write for a living. It sounds distinguished, professional, praiseworthy. After the fact that they are a writer is established, it is often followed by the question, “So what did you write?” If you’re the person asking the question I hope you have quick reflexes. Like the actors that serve you dinner, many writers are biding time at their day job whilst waiting for their big break. Said break will probably never happen if they keep writing online fanfiction about Kirk and Spock in romantic situations. If you hate Christopher Paolini because he wrote a novel, it’s probably time to stop doing Internet “research” on the computer in your mom’s basement and start taking a serious stab at that outline you’ve toyed with for a decade.

3) Continuation

Christopher Paolini wrote a second novel. A person in the same situation as Christopher has thoughts like this: “I made it. My first book is published and doing well and the publisher wants my second manuscript.” If this is you, brace yourself, because here it comes. You’ll be walking around the grocery store, casually comparing prices on cans of beets, when you get it for the first time. The tap on the shoulder. “Hey buddy,” they’ll say, “remember me? From high school?” Often you do in fact remember them and the memories are not fond ones. “Saw your book,” they continue, “it’s doing real good.” I like to call the previous statement the butter-up; it’s the precursor to the real reason you hold a now-forgotten can of $1.79 whole baby beets in your hand. “Say, I had a great idea....” Flee in terror! Quick! Before the idea leaves their lips! It’s your only hope! There is no reasoning with the person before you. Stating the fact that you already have too many of your own ideas to pursue does not deter them. They mention that the hard part is already done, you just have to write the book, and they’ll share the profits with you! With as much decorum as possible, extricate yourself from the situation, saying you’ll have to go over it with your agent and get back to them. From this point on you will spend the rest of your life checking to make sure their car isn’t in the parking lot when you go shopping. If you hate Christopher Paolini because he managed to write a second book, a book that is not about the idea you flung at him as he rushed from the Piggly-Wiggly, stop. Take a minute to evaluate how good your idea really is. If you’re still satisfied that it’s a good story, do us all a favor and take the night course offered at your local community college on how to write a novel. It’s the only surefire way for everyone to win.

4) Success

Christopher Paolini wrote a bestselling novel. People that aspire to be writers will sing praises to such a person, all the while shooting little daggers with their eyes at them for accomplishing such a feat. Christopher was in the right place at the right time with the right publisher doing the right promotions with the right spin and it paid off. He has a bestselling novel. You probably don’t. If you hate Christopher Paolini because he wrote a bestseller, well, you’re pretty much stuck with the taste of bile in the back of your throat every time you think of him. I know lots of great authors who are not bestsellers. Hitting the top of the lists is a convergence of skill, publicity, and timing. Sometimes series don’t hit their stride until the fourth or fifth book. Sometimes being a bestseller is more of a pain than a blessing. If it still bothers you that he hit the right combination so young, content yourself with the knowledge that young geniuses burn out fast. (Not really, but it made you feel better for a bit, didn’t it?)

5) Hollywood

Christopher Paolini’s novel got made into a movie. This is the true lottery win of the writer, but not without its drawbacks. The novel the writer worked on with love and devotion for so long is being rewritten by someone trying to hack enough out of it so it fits within two hours of screen time. Sure, Christopher got a great paycheck and is probably getting residuals from the deal, but the movie is almost never as good as the book. It’s hard to see something you spent so much time working on reduced and reworked in such a manner when you have only extreme financial stability to show for it. If you hate Christopher Paolini because of the money he made from selling out to Hollywood, then I’m right there with you. If you happen to be Christopher Paolini’s agent and are reading this, then you can contact me through the publisher of this article. I’ve got some great ideas I think you’d be interested in.

6) Tempo

One of the things people picked out to criticize about Paolini’s writing was the pacing. The story seemed to drag, they’d say; stories should be told quickly, to give more immediate satisfaction to the reader. I think the proper formula (which I am right now extrapolating from the suggestions given to me) demands that there be blood, battle, or sex on every third page. Christopher Paolini doesn’t deliver on this. Sure, there is blood and battle, but not on every third page, and the sex is almost nonexistent! Then again, Eragon and Eldest and Brisingr are novels for young adults, so it should be blood, battle, and pining for sex on every third page. In Eldest the character of Eragon does pretty good about the pining part every time he thinks of Arya, and it started out with the blood and battle sprinkled liberally over the first chapter or so, but training? Soul searching? Roran’s responsibilities to the people of his hometown? I’ll concede that Roran does a fair amount of killing with his hammer every time he shows up, but I’ve been told Christopher needs to pick up the pace a bit with the rest. If you hate Christopher Paolini because you think his novels aren’t exciting enough, well, I can’t help you. I thought the novels were great. Try listening to classical music for a while, study a foreign language, or maybe attend a political debate to help pump up the old IQ a bit. If those things don’t help you appreciate a well-structured story that doesn’t rely on the every-third-page formula then I suggest watching old episodes of Sesame Street. It’s where I started, and I can appreciate the pacing of Paolini’s books just fine.

7) Innovation

Someone was explaining Eragon to me before I read the book and complained that it was full of unoriginal ideas. “He got this from here,” they’d say, “exactly like it was written by so-and-so.” Accusations of cliché or outright plagiarism always follow anyone who writes a bestselling novel. The editor of this issue, James Owen, was once accused by a slew of people of ripping off characters from Neil Gaiman, prompting Neil to respond by writing the foreword to a collection of James’s comic Starchild. Neil writes: “What writers do is this: we borrow, and we invent and we embroider. . . . We build upon what went before. . . . We loot and pillage and we hone and we shape. . . . We never start nor finish in a vacuum, or alone.” In other parts of the text, he explains that the characters in question, Oberon and Titania, have been used by Neil, James, Shakespeare, and others stretching back to the legends told before stories were written down. Paolini doesn’t use names we’ve read before, but the situations seem familiar because they are. Tales of Good versus Evil stretch back to the creation of Good versus Evil. The farm boy revealed as a princely figure is only slightly younger than that. You may find similarities to other stories, and be that as it may, Eragon’s world belongs to Christopher Paolini. If you think Christopher Paolini stole the ideas he writes about in Eragon and Eldest, he didn’t. He just told an old story in a new way and you’re just jealous because you couldn’t do as good a job.

8) Languages

Next we come to Paolini’s use of the elder languages. I will admit there is a bit of a flaw here. Creating a new language is a hard thing, especially when it has to sound as finessed and regal as his ancient language should. There are times when the language stumbles, sounding more like an unusable form of German than the language of ultimate truth, but let’s take a step back and look at the measuring stick we’re using. J. R. R. Tolkien was a master of ancient languages. He understood how dead languages were thought, written, and spoken. I’m sure it was no easy task to create the languages used in his Middle-earth stories, but if anyone had the knowledge to do it and make it sound real it was him. At the other extreme we have the Klingon language, proof positive that if you have a large enough group of nerds living in a fantasy world eventually they will find a way to communicate with one another. People with huge amounts of time on their hands and nothing better to do then discover to appropriate syntax and delivery of the phrase “bortaS bIr jablu’DI’ reH QaQqu’ nay’” are the type of people judging Paolini. It’s really not fair. Paolini was by himself when he came up with the ancient language. He didn’t have a lifetime of studying ancient script or innumerable nerdlings to aid him in his endeavor. If you hate Christopher Paolini because you felt he didn’t do a good job on the ancient language, I challenge you to come up with a better word than brisingr and then put it in a sentence where all the rules of grammar apply. Go on, try it, you pansy. Not so easy, is it? I predict that your continued attempts to rewrite the rules of pig latin will fail you miserably.

9) Wording

Coming close to the bottom of the list, we find that some people are put off by some of the word choices in Eragon and Eldest. I’m sure that when Christopher was writing his story he was expecting the readers to have advanced beyond the Fun with Dick and Jane books. That may not be the case. If you have ever been reading one of Paolini’s books and were shocked to be staring at a grouping of letters that defied you, I offer this: As you are reading, think about the context and usage of the large words; sometimes this will help in determining their meaning. Have a small notepad and pencil handy as you read and jot down any words that continue to confound you, giving you a chance to look them up later. Pretty soon you’ll find yourself reading at the same level as my nine-year-old daughter and the big words won’t be as much of a problem anymore. If you continue to grouse about Christopher Paolini’s word choices I recommend a particular bit of advice a second time: community college. If you did what I told you to before then you’re already there, so how hard will it be to take a second class and expand your horizons? If that doesn’t work for you, I suggest one of those word-a-day calendars.

10) Fair Folk

I’ve been asked if we really need another story about elves. I have to retort that Eragon and Eldest are not really stories about elves, they are stories about dragons and the elf-like boy who rides one. “But Eragon is so like the Lord of the Rings books,” they say, “elves and dwarves and....” At this point in the conversation it is probably a good thing to just turn around and walk away. The other person may not even notice you leaving. There is always room for something done well. If a book sits on the shelf next to the great books of the past and manages to hold its own, then it belongs.

 

It seems to me that the main reason people hate Christopher Paolini is because he’s managed to accomplish things they haven’t been able to do. They’re not justified in judging him, and they know it. People hate to be proven wrong, they hate to look bad or foolish, they hate to admit that some people get where they belong because of hard work, talent, and creativity. It’s hard to look at someone else’s success because it reminds them of the potential they’re too lazy to use or opportunities wasted and long gone. Christopher Paolini is where he belongs. We should be glad we have him as an example.

If you’ve gained nothing else from this list, I hope you’ve realized this: If you’re so passionate about criticizing someone’s accomplishments that you have no time to create anything of your own, you need to rethink what you’re doing. You’re wasting energy that could go toward creating something wonderful. If you do it right, someone may think up ten reasons they hate you.

 

 

Jeremy Owen has worked as a stonemason, a carpenter, an artist, a writer, an animatronics engineer, and more. He is collaborating with his brother James on several illustrated books, and is working on his first novel. He lives with his family in Silvertown, Arizona, where he currently works as the production manager at the Coppervale Studio.